Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “More Obamunism: Who Controls the Newspapers Controls the Present”

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March 25, 2009

More Obamunism: Who Controls the Newspapers Controls the Present

Hatched by Dafydd

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."

-- "George Orwell" (Eric Blair), Nineteen Eighty-Four

Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD, 100%) has ridden in on his white horse with a wonderful suggestion for newspapers that are in financial trouble (which is pretty much all of them): Reincorporate as 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit educational institutions, which would exempt them from most income tax (except for "unrelated business income").

Of course, the move would also absolutely prohibit political advocacy, lobbying, or electioneering... which as I read it would even preclude publishing editorials critical of, e.g., the administration of Barack H. Obama. Or of individual Democratic senators, such as Benjamin Cardin. But that ought to be a good thing, no? Surely we all want newspapers to be politically neutral gatherers of fact and disseminators of the truth!

With many U.S. newspapers struggling to survive, a Democratic senator on Tuesday introduced a bill to help them by allowing newspaper companies to restructure as nonprofits with a variety of tax breaks.

"This may not be the optimal choice for some major newspapers or corporate media chains but it should be an option for many newspapers that are struggling to stay afloat," said Senator Benjamin Cardin....

Cardin's Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies.

Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements.

The comparison to PBS is apt; as we have all seen, PBS is forbidden from any political editorializing, politicking, electioneering, or advocacy. But of course, if they're merely reporting on issues -- straight "reporting," such as:

That the Iraq war was a disastrous defeat for America;

That rampant, unregulated, laissez-faire Capitalism is what got us into the financial crisis;

That the only thing that will save us now is complete nationalization of the economy;

That Israel is the cause of all problems in the Middle East;

That without government-run health care, we'll all die of cancer by age 60;

That anthropogenic global climate change is universally accepted by "science;" thus the time for denial by denying deniers (i.e., "high crimes against humanity and nature" or "intergenerational crime in the face of all the knowledge and science from over 20 years") has ended once and for all;

...That sort of straight, unbiased, apolitical news reporting will naturally still be allowed. You can't prohibit educational institutions such as the New York Times and the Washington Post from educating, can you?

But biased, divisive, obstructionist, obsolete, disloyal, and partisan politicking will no longer be legally allowed in newspapers. After all, they have a duty (as tax-exempt organizations) to educate, which means to tell the truth... "the truth" to be determined by the unbiased, professional, expert auditors at the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Who else?

Ergo, newspapers would have to cease publishing any future columns or opinion pieces by such talking-point, robot-army soldiers as Douglas Feith, David Freddoso, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Steyn, or John Hinderaker. But the papers wouldn't suffer from a lack of content, as they would be perfectly free to publish nonpartisan disseminators of pure truthful information, free from slant and politics, including Molly Ivins, Markos Moulitsas, Keith Olbermann, Jim Lehrer, and Bill Moyers.

What I cannot fathom, however, is why a Democrat, a member of the ADA's "100%-er" club, would push for the elite newspaper medium to switch from publishing such ardently tilted and mendacious flummery (such as opinion pieces by atmospheric physicists or meteorologists disputing Algore's 95 theses on globaloney) to the calm, measured, unemotional, multilateral, fact-based pronouncements of Nobel Prize winners such as, well, such as Algore. And Paul Krugman.

All this time, I've wrongly accused Democrats like Cardin of being mindless, vermin-infested, screeching blue monkeys, swooping overhead and hurling their feces down on the rest of us, then hauling us off to the Wicked Rodham of the West. And the little dog we rode in on, too.

I'm stunned that such a senator would abandon faction and ideology for the cold, unadorned, reality-based solution of turning profitless newspapers into non-profit ones, in effect, nationalizing the entire news-gathering industry. (To promote greater freedom of speech, of course.)

Go figure!

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 25, 2009, at the time of 9:44 PM

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Comments

The following hissed in response by: nk

And the reporters' new motto, in place of Illegitimi Non Corburundum, will be Ad Majorem Obamum Gloriam.

The above hissed in response by: nk at March 26, 2009 5:37 AM

The following hissed in response by: Steven Den Beste

Molly Ivins died two years ago.

The above hissed in response by: Steven Den Beste at March 26, 2009 11:40 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Steven Den Beste:

Sorry, I meant the other one.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh at March 26, 2009 9:23 PM

The following hissed in response by: Fritz

It has long been obvious that Democrats do not believe in free speech, or should I say they only believe in speech which favors them. As proof of that I suggest checking who voted for McCain-Feingold and who keeps bringing up the so-called "Fairness Doctrine." What I do find disturbing is that eleven Republicans voted for McCain-Feingold.

Anyhow, the bill regarding newspapers is simply another example of the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" applied to another section of the media, perfectly in line with Democrat party ideals and sneaked in by the usual Democrat's method of calling it something it is not.

The above hissed in response by: Fritz at March 27, 2009 7:35 AM

The following hissed in response by: Terrye

Some of this stuff is just plain ridiculous.

The above hissed in response by: Terrye at March 27, 2009 3:24 PM